The American Spectator

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It is refreshing to hear someone who finally “gets it” on illegal aliens. Americans are still old fashioned enough to expect people, regardless of where they come from, to play by the rules. Which in our case means, is take a visa number and wait in line.

Ottaviano/Peri miss three rather important points:

1. The use of capital in many ways has a disjointed relationship to labor, but it certainly does not follow that more labor causes capital formation. For most businesses that are expanding the accumulation of capital causes a demand for more labor as more product require more hands to produce it. But adding more workers to the production line does not do the reverse.

2. They totally discount the maxim of “bad money driving out good money” or in the labor market “bad labor driving out good.” The canard of course is immigrants doing jobs other Americans won’t is just that. If a shortage was to develop in a labor pool, the rates would rise and segments of Americans would be attracted to the positions. By continuing with our current open borders policy, we suppress the market forces for labor that have till recently been a means for most people to move up the economic ladder.

3. The example cited of semi-skilled labor misses the point that most of the illegal aliens flowing over the border lack skills period. In that vein they are a labor commodity with any illegal replaceable with any other.

p>It seems odd to me that the Democrats, always with their heart on their sleeves seem quite complacent about the plight of exploitation of the illegal. They view the opportunity to turn them into voters. But where is the outrage to protect them? And what better way to prevent exploitation than to prevent them from coming in the first place? Or at least do it legally so that they may avail themselves of the laws that protect other citizens. br> — John McGinnis br> Arlington, Texas /p> p> FRESH EYES br> Re: Shawn Macomber’s The Beagle Has Landed